....> community...Living in Europe now, I realized that most people didn't
know> what bagels are and hadn't associated any "cultural value" to it.> Anyway, that's only my .013SFr. (or .01$US, depending on the point of view)>> Alexandre Enkerli> Laboratoire d'Analyse Informatique de la Parole (LAIP)> U.de Lausanne (Unil): alexandre.enkerli@imm.unil.ch> Dept.Anthropologie, U.de Montreal(UdeM): enkerlia@ere.umontreal.ca

Being Polish, the first thing on my mind comes up that bagels are POLISH :-)
Of course they might be Jewish invention, nevertheless, Jews lived in
other countries than Poland too and bagels are not known to the people of
these countries.

As far as the shape of a bagel is concerned they do not have to be
enclosed circles. In Poland they are enclosed too, but more often they
are open, like a drawing of the moon, like croissants, but bready as
opposed to the rich pastry of the French croissant.